Up next in 10
In my quest for assembling the perfect 72-hour kit, I decided to check out a kit from the store. This one is from Readywise. Let's see if it's any good!
Timestamps
0:23 - What goes in the Ultimate 72-Hour Kit?
3:02 - The Backpack
5:04 - Food
7:10 - Water
8:15 - Survival Gear
16:03 - First Aid Kit
18:36 - What would you change?
Pantry Preparedness is a trademark of Income School LLC, an Idaho Limited Liability Company
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
Well, how is it going, my friends
0:01
I hope you're having a great day. Today I want to take the opportunity to break down a brand
0:08
new emergency 72 hour kit. Recently in a video, I took apart the ones that I already had
0:16
One for me, one for my wife, that we hadn't opened up in 10 years
0:21
And I showed you what was in there. And honestly, I'm kind of on a quest right now to put together the
0:27
ultimate emergency 72 hour kit. Um, and to help you figure out exactly what that might be for you
0:33
And before I get any further, I would love it. If in the comments, you would tell me your opinions, what would you make
0:39
sure to include in a 72 hour kit? Beyond kind of the obvious stuff, 72 hours worth of food, maybe change
0:45
of clothing and plenty of water. Let's move beyond that. What else do you think is dramatic
0:50
Super, super important. I already got feedback from one of you who told me that people often overlook
0:55
entertainment and having something small, light, but entertaining to use. What could be extremely helpful, especially because oftentimes in an emergency, you
1:04
kind of get stuck sitting, waiting stuff out, uh, sometimes in an emergency shelter
1:09
Uh, anyway, entertainment has, I think that's a great idea. So that's something we're going to include in our kit as we
1:15
build our own going forward. But I came across this one. This is a ReadyWise, uh, emergency survival backpack
1:22
ReadyWise is a brand. I see them all over the place. Um, I see them selling, uh, emergency food at Costco
1:28
And so I thought I'm going to give this a shot, especially because this thing is
1:32
is, uh, listed at 109.99 and it was on sale for 89.99
1:37
So save 20 bucks on it and basically get a feel for what's in their kit
1:43
Now, obviously I could have just read the side of the box, but I often find with
1:49
Kits that oftentimes in order to get the price as low as possible, we end up with
1:54
a lot of really cheap materials, stuff. I wouldn't actually find that useful in an emergency situation
2:00
So this is actually still packaged up. I've never even opened it before
2:05
We're going to break right in and we're going to see what's actually
2:08
inside and kind of rate this. I looked at a whole bunch of different emergency kits online, by the way, you
2:13
can spend anywhere from about a hundred dollars to three, four, $500, even for a
2:20
72 hour kit. And honestly, some of that is going to definitely come down to what actual gear
2:26
they put in there, like how complete the kit is, but a lot of it's going to come
2:30
down to probably the quality of the gear. And so it's, it's kind of hard to know though, until you
2:35
actually get it in your hands. The nice thing is that these days, unlike years ago, um, these days you can send
2:44
stuff back like most things. And so if I were going to buy a 72 hour kit on Amazon, I would make sure
2:50
that returns were allowed. All right, here we go. This, uh, seems fairly small and light for a full 72 hour kit
2:58
So, um, we'll see. Here we go. All right. So there's a backpack
3:05
This feels of a similar kind of quality as basically just a regular school backpack
3:12
It's not even really oversized. It's seems to be about a standard school backpack size
3:19
Um, also like the straps aren't like extra padded and you know, we're not
3:24
getting, uh, at sort of the joints here, the joints, right at the seams
3:30
I should know better. I'm sorry, mom. Uh, at the seams here, we're not getting like extra stitching and stuff
3:36
I basically, we just have a normal ordinary backpack, which is probably fine
3:40
This isn't something that we're taking out into the woods and going, uh, hiking
3:43
with every other weekend, right? This is an emergency kit. Okay. When I open up these pockets, I'm just curious to see, I think everything's
3:52
just right now, it's just all in the main pocket. We're going to talk in the future as we put together our own 72 hour kit
3:58
We'll talk a bit about, um, packing that kit in the most useful way
4:03
Okay. So these there's front pockets here, but none of them has anything in it
4:08
I do have a couple of straps here that could come in handy to put something through
4:13
I do have like water bottle holders on the side. I have another little pocket up here in the top, but that's just
4:19
kind of this little mesh spot here. Maybe you'd throw a couple of little things up there
4:24
So now we're going to get into what looked like maybe the main pocket, not the main
4:31
pocket, there's also one inside here. Again, very, very basically standard school bag kind of backpack, nothing in there
4:39
Okay. Everything seems to be in the big pocket, which is here
4:44
Now it's time to break it out. It does have one of these little flappy pockets there, which I like in a backpack
4:54
Okay. A few things. Okay. That's the whole thing. It's the whole kit right there
5:04
I'm going to keep this available visible so that I can see everything
5:09
that's supposed to be in here. Okay. So first things first, we have food
5:13
I'm jumping to the food first. This is actually something that stood out to me with this kit compared
5:18
to most of the other ones I found. Basically every 72 hour kit I found on Amazon, the food was just ration bars
5:25
I've done a couple of videos now on ration bars. If you don't know why I don't like them for emergency food, you can go check
5:32
out this, this video right here. I'll link to it right there. It's not my preference
5:37
You should see why this one actually has real food, right? This is apple cinnamon cereal
5:44
This one says you just boil some water, add the contents of the pouch into the
5:49
water, let it heat, cover it and let it stand for 12 to 15 minutes and eat it
5:54
Right. So basically just regular survival food. Here's another one. This is oatmeal
6:02
Basically the same instructions. You boil some water, mix what's in the pouch in with the water, which we
6:07
would need a bowl to do that. And this doesn't come with like a big mixing bowl
6:10
Also, this has four, this has a thousand calories worth of oatmeal in it, which
6:16
means I'm probably supposed to eat this over the course of the three days
6:21
I don't love that either. We've, I've talked about that on this channel when I talked about emergency
6:24
food, but I like that it's real food at least. So there's that. Creamy pasta and veggies, Southwest rice and beans, um, a whey milk alternative
6:35
So basically kind of like a milk powder and hearty tortilla soup. We've got plenty of food here to last a person for their 72 hours
6:42
Again, as long as you can manage to mix it all up really well and then only dish
6:48
out enough to, to eat for that one meal. If it, cause some of these look like they're supposed to last more than one meal
6:54
Although these kind of main meal ones like the soup, that might just be one meal
6:59
It's four servings. That's 600 calories. That's probably just one dinner. So not too bad
7:05
It's mostly the basic stuff. So not too bad. It's mostly the breakfast that they don't separate them out very well
7:11
Next here is water. Now this, this I'm not so sold on
7:17
It comes with five water pouches and each water pouch has a 4.227 ounces
7:25
just over a half a cup. I'm supposed to survive on less than three cups of water
7:30
I'm a little bit confused as to why this is the amount of water. Honestly, I think the expectation here is that we're going to have
7:37
to use a lot more than this. It says drink a minimum of two bags per person per day for marine
7:43
emergencies, drinking water as needed for land-based emergencies. You're going to want a lot more water than that
7:50
I guess it's a minimum to survive on. But if I'm again, packing a 72 hour kit, I'm not trying to just not die
7:58
You know, I'm not necessarily trying to like live in comfort here, but I'm
8:02
going to want to not die and I feel like I would die if I only drank that much water
8:06
All right. Let's talk about the rest of the stuff. Again, this bag was not even near full
8:11
I could definitely throw a bunch more water in there, but let's go through the rest of what's in here
8:17
Okay. We got some fuel tablets. All right. I'm a little curious
8:22
I said, what exactly do you mean? I've never used tablets quite like this before. I honestly don't know what these are
8:30
Some of you who do know what they are probably going to laugh at me right now. And that's okay
8:34
But I don't know what they are. So I'm going to have to actually do a little bit of research
8:39
It doesn't come with any sort of instructions for what to do with these tablets
8:43
I have a face mask, I guess, just in case I get sent to California or somewhere
8:48
where they might still require those. No, it's sorry. No, really though, just for certain, especially medical type emergencies
8:56
or various situations, even like say a volcano erupts and there's ash in the air. Right
9:02
There are lots of situations where having a face mask would actually be really helpful
9:09
Okay. These are water purification tablets. Each one of these comes with two
9:13
So two, four, six, eight, 10. So I could purify water, which is great for anything that's not a marine emergency
9:20
So maybe that's part of what they're thinking is hopefully I'll have access
9:24
to some kind of water source and then I can just purify it. They do actually have instructions for the AquaTabs at least
9:32
That's nice. All right. We've got some waterproof matches, Strycon box matches, just a little pack of those
9:40
Okay. Not bad. A five function whistle. I don't know why I would need five different whistles
9:47
Just kidding. Dad jokes all around here. No, it's five functions because it functions as five different things
9:54
In fact, my wife's 72 hour kit had something very similar in it. It has a compass
9:58
It is a whistle. One of the five, there's a mirror on it
10:03
It says it's a signal mirror. Oh, it's on the inside. Okay. If I open it up, there's a little mirror
10:08
Yep. Right there. You can use that to signal that the aircraft's flying over
10:12
I can shine the sun's light back at it and possibly, I don't know if I'm
10:18
There you go. See, it's actually amazing how well just a little mirror like that can signal
10:22
It's also a waterproof container for matches and right here on the
10:27
side, there's a little tiny flint. I'm not convinced that will be very effective, but at least it's a flint
10:36
We also have a little cup here. Um, it's really, really light
10:40
I have one very similar to this in size, maybe slightly bigger, but, uh, it's, it's a bit heavier
10:47
And so that one, I know I can confidently literally just like put it on top of the
10:51
fire and boil water or whatever in it. And it's going to be just fine
10:55
This one, I don't know how well it's going to hold up, but again, we're talking about an emergency 72 hour kit
11:00
Having it light might actually be kind of handy. All right. This one does come with a deck of playing cards
11:05
My wife's kit also had a deck of playing cards. Here's your most basic form of entertainment
11:10
Make sure, you know, some card games in today's world. I'm a little bit surprised how little some people, especially young people
11:18
know about just how to entertain themselves with things that aren't digital
11:22
And so, uh, knowing some card games is an important part of being able to make it
11:28
through an emergency situation, playing cards. I think that's a great idea. Okay
11:33
This is a little mini camp stove. I'm wondering, I think that maybe these little fuel
11:38
tablets are made for this. It says fuel. I'm like, when I think fuel, it's like, well, maybe that's supposed to be food
11:45
but more likely than not, it's for burning. I'm assuming that that's what it's for. And then you should be able to set some things on top of it
11:53
Let's open it up and just see what we think about this. It folds out
11:59
You set those right on it. And then if this were bigger, I could set this above it maybe, but it's not wide
12:06
enough, so I would need to use like a little mess kit or something, or I guess roast stuff on a stick
12:11
Uh, there's definitely with those four tablets, not going to be any way that
12:15
I'm going to be able to boil enough water to cook all this food over the course of three days
12:20
So we're going to need some other heat source, but maybe the assumption is that this as a heat source is only going to be needed for some of the 72 hours
12:28
You can see how the wheels are already turning as to what I would do differently to make this quite a bit better
12:35
That said, my 72 hour kit is probably going to be much larger and quite a bit
12:39
heavier, but I'm okay with that. This was really light. All right. We got this thing
12:44
It's just a little, it's like a grocery sack. It's a thin grocery sack
12:47
It's a bag. It's a waste bag. Okay. It is handy to have a garbage bag in there
12:53
I would probably just throw a normal kitchen, uh, garbage bag into my 72 hour
12:58
kit, but of course, you know, for this, they're going to go with something orange and something that seems survival-ish
13:07
All right, here we have, uh, this is the rain poncho. Um, I also have something I think that's going to be better for this that I'm going
13:15
to talk about in another video here soon. Okay. But you've probably seen these before, but you need to see the picture there
13:23
It's just a regular old, thin, lightweight, waterproof, almost like a big garbage bag
13:29
with cutouts for your face and your hands. Um, and it does the job to keep you wet
13:33
It says it's backpack coverable, but probably not on people my size. All right, next we have an emergency blanket
13:39
These Mylar blankets, they're great. Um, they actually do reflect a lot of heat
13:44
I am also going to make a video on that here soon because I recently, or actually
13:48
it was late last winter, did a bunch of testing in the outdoors to see just how
13:52
well emergency blankets were reflecting my heat and it was better than I thought
13:57
So good to have one of these on hand, but again, I might have a better recommendation for you
14:02
This is really light and small. I've used several, I've had several of these before
14:08
Actually, no, it's probably about right. Yeah. That unfolds to be, it says 140 by 210 centimeters
14:15
So almost one and a half meters by, um, just over two meters
14:20
So if you think about that, for those of us who think in feet, a meter is about a yard or three feet
14:25
So we're talking about, you know, six feet by four, not quite four and a half feet
14:31
So that's how big that is. Not huge, but enough to cover most of us
14:36
So that's a good thing. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. That's a good thing
14:40
That's a good thing. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. That's a good thing
14:44
That's a good thing. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. That's a good thing
14:48
That's a good thing. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. That's a good thing
14:51
That's a good thing. That's a good thing. Let's get ruined. Although this must have some kind of battery in it
14:57
Otherwise, this wouldn't be on. But I don't see where I would replace it
15:02
So it's not like a regular little alkaline battery. But what's going on here is, let's see
15:09
There we go. I charge it up like that. So even if I don't have battery power
15:16
I can just light it up that way and at least get some
15:23
Maybe this is just supposed to mostly recharge that battery. Anyway, I can get power that way
15:28
They also have ones where you can shake it. And it's like this thing wiggles back and forth in there
15:34
And that generates an electrical current and charges up the battery and makes it so you can run it
15:38
So definitely better than the solar powered flashlight concept. But the idea of being able to use renewable energy
15:43
and not rely on batteries. All right, next. This is just some tissue in one of those little tiny packets
15:51
Not a bad thing to have on hand. Not something I necessarily would have thought of to have tissue
15:55
If I'm going to use anything, it'll probably be just wipes, regular wipes
16:00
But dry tissue is lighter, so it's not bad. Then this is the first aid kit
16:09
I think this is really funny because it's like, there are 64 items in this survival kit
16:16
And then it's like, there are 36 items in your first aid kit
16:22
So this is more than half of those 64 items. And it's this big
16:29
Because every band-aid counts, right? All right, there's a couple little 2 by 2 gauze swabs
16:36
a handful of band-aids. 2, 4, 6, 8, 10. 10 regular size band-aids
16:44
A handful of the kind of small, like, not quite butterfly band-aids
16:49
They're just rectangular. But they're that size of the little butterfly band-aids
16:54
And then one of those, I don't even know what you call that shape
16:58
It's kind of like an hourglass shape. I don't know if you can see that through there
17:02
But yeah, it's like an hourglass shape, sort of. I'm sure there's a name for that
17:07
Three little alcohol pads, three antiseptic wipes, so little wet wipes that are antiseptic
17:18
And then I'm guessing for their 30 however many items in this kit here
17:24
they're counting that there are, let's see, 10 cotton tips. They're counting each one of these individually
17:31
So some cotton swabs. This is a first aid kit that will handle a couple of cuts and scrapes
17:37
But it wouldn't handle anything beyond that. For my emergency kit, I'm going to have something quite a bit more capable than this
17:46
Something to think about, though, because I have a family, okay? There are seven of us. I have five children
17:53
There are things that I'm going to want to have an emergency kit
17:57
that we don't each need to have. And so one of the things, like, when it comes to first aid
18:02
I'm probably going to have more first aid stuff. And I'm going to carry a fair amount of it in my kit
18:06
because I can carry the most. I also probably need the most food and water
18:10
but I can carry the most stuff, right? So I'm going to put a little bit extra of those things in there
18:14
but also probably a bigger first aid kit. And everybody else with me doesn't need their own huge first aid kit
18:21
Maybe something little and simple like this would be sufficient for each of my kids to have just in case there was a need
18:28
and we weren't all together at some point in time. Chances are I'd put just a bit more in both mine and my wife's first aid kits
18:34
That way we could really take care of things if something bad happened
18:38
And that's it. There's our 72-hour kit. What is missing? I want to know from you, what would you add to this
18:46
I know some things that we had in ours that are not here. I mentioned some already, a change of clothes, a bit more water
18:53
I can think of a handful of other things, but before I lead you on too much, I'm curious to know
18:58
what would you add to this 72-hour kit or replace entirely? Or maybe you say, just throw it out and start over
19:04
What would you do to create for yourself or for your family
19:08
the ultimate 72-hour kit? Let me know in the comments below. I am trying really hard to prepare the ultimate 72-hour kit
19:15
And we're going to be talking about that here on this channel in an upcoming video or two or three
19:19
because I think I'm going to do one just on first aid kits. Hope that's of interest to you too
19:24
If it is, again, let me know in the comments below. I also hope that you are all about preparedness
19:28
just like I am. Of course, I mean, I like other things too, but preparedness is a big one, right
19:33
And so that's why I made this channel. And I hope that that's why you'll stick with me
19:37
and join me in my next video. ♪♪��
#Packaging
#Outdoors
#Hiking & Camping
#Other
#Backpacks & Utility Bags
#Luggage & Travel Accessories